OpenXTalk Forums

CURRENT STATUS - August 2024.

We're at almost 3 years into OpenXTalk!

In an effort to catch up any recent newcomers here is an attempt to summarize the history and current state of OpenXTalk IDE...
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First let me say, there is no team(s) here, there's only a small community of xTalk refugees.
There are no expert C++ Software Engineers here (so far), so maybe don't get your hopes too high.

Sept. 1st 2021, LC Ltd. abandoned the open-source community edition.

Seth Morrow, Richmond, and myself and a few other people were all trying to collect all of the Community Installers that had been taken off-line (at the time), which we did and are just about all made available on Archive.org.

Then Seth and I discussed continuing FOSS xTalk, in particular keeping the LC community development effort alive. Seth graciously provided hosting for this forum and we began efforts for de-branding the IDE, which was the basic requirement for continuation. I made a new HC inspired icon (see top of page), and Seth and I began editing the many references to LC out of the Dictionary and IDE UI. That took much longer than I initially expected, over a year (I still occasionally find ones that were missed). A de-branded Dictionary was 'compiled'. When I say de-branded what I mean is most references to LC were replaced with a preferably generic term like 'xTalk script', 'the IDE','Extension Builder', etc.

Seth sort of faded to the background since he was too busy with real-life to work on OXT. So I began trying to fix and improve on the IDE mostly on my own, as I saw fit. There were a few contributions here and there from other community members (such as Terry Little), along the way.

I did make some early (unsuccessful) effort to try to recompile the engine on macOS. I'm no X-code C++ expert and I still do not even have an Apple Silicon Mac to work with so M-series CPU support wasn't going to happen from me. But I continued making non-Engine IDE bugs fixes, and I added a few features as well, like an extension macOS native 'DarkMode' support, HyperTalk 'playSentence' support (I'm a long-time MIDI Music tinkerer), new libraries of SVG Icons, things like that.

Then sometime in 2023, Tom Perry (tPerry2x) joined in making his own fork (OXT Lite) with more minimalist design goals. Around that time some other brilliant bloke named 'Tom' produced a binary patcher that fixed the launch-crashing on macOS Sonoma, however this patch may be the cause of some image corruption that Richmond was experience in standalone macOS app builds, so that's still a problem (although there may be a work-around ) that needs to be fixed in the macOS engine's source code.

Tom's joining in was actually perfect timing, because changes to my RL situation has made it so that I have significantly less time available to work on OXT. Tom really picked up the torch and ran. I've tried unsuccessfully to keep up with rolling his changes and fixes into my fork (which is not actually called 'Heavy' it's 'DPE' for Don't Panic Edition). I'm lagging behind.

Tom began trying to recompile the engines, and then we realized then that the 'Pre-Built' binaries that the build process was looking for were behind a password-wall on LC Ltd's server. Fortunately Mark Wielder was able to provide us with those binaries for building on Linux. Tom was able to get Linux Engine recompiled and removed the last piece of 'branding' which was a license checking stack that was embedded into the engines. I was able to compile a few of those missing dependencies from source, but a short while later we were able to get a hold of the rest of those missing binaries. Very recently Mark Welder has patched his fork of LC Community engine repo to pull in and compile those dependency binaries from their source (up to date ). So progress is (slowly) being made on the engine front.

On the IDE side of things both Tom and I continue work trying to make it better however we can.

That's where we are with the 'LC Community Edition' base part of OpenXTalk....
Despite what some people may think, OpenXTalk.org has always been about xTalk and more specifically open-source xTalk.
The LC CE code base may be the best cross-platform open-source xTalk interpreter that we have available to us, but OpenXTalk is NOT exclusively about the LC CE. (see the OXT Manifesto).
As such any other xTalk/xCard implementations (commercial or FOSS), such as SuperCard, OpenXION, StackSmith, ViperCard, HyperCard Simulator, etc. are more than welcome to be discussed on these forums.

So we only have 'Pre-Built' binaries for Linux?

Mic

micmac wrote: ↑Fri Aug 02, 2024 1:33 pm So we only have 'Pre-Built' binaries for Linux?
Mic

No, I believe we have all desktop platform 'Pre-Built' binaries available to us now.

For Linux Mark Wielder has patched the build process in his Engine fork so that those dependency libraries are pulled-in and built from their latest source code, so they'll be up-to-date versions.

I'm not sure if we're missing any "pre-built" binaries for the mobile platforms (iOS/Android/Emscripten) standalone engines.

OpenXTalkPaul wrote: ↑Fri Aug 02, 2024 1:58 pm I believe we have all desktop platform 'Pre-Built' binaries available to us now.

We do for desktop platforms. Link is here.

OpenXTalkPaul wrote: ↑Fri Aug 02, 2024 1:58 pm I'm not sure if we're missing any "pre-built" binaries for the mobile platforms (iOS/Android/Emscripten) standalone engines.

We could well be. Has anyone attempted to compile these?
If nothing else, to add the updated iOS and Android SDK versions.

That's also where we need to apply the updated menu patch for Sonoma+

Side note: I downloaded OXT Lite 1.06 for Linux, as I ditched Windows for the current Linux Mint Cinnamon (I would be happy in XFCE, but it was the only bootable media I had when I only had one machine, and it went down [Avira installing itself Ring 0 in Win w/o the uninstaller removing it properly.] I don't feel the need to migrate to XFCE at the mo, as this is a well-equipped laptop.)

Is there / will there be a 1.07 that I should be keeping an eye out for, or is this still "yet to be?" Just curious.

[Aside: I do still have the MacBook Air with Monterey installed; I don't really use it. If bug testing needs done, I can do it; however I'd prefer not to unless absolutely necessary, as that's really a "backup" machine at this point and I don't intend to use it unless my System76 laptop goes down.]

Sorry to interject, but I just wanted to let you guys know "where I am" and find out "where I might need to be."]

It's there now
(download page) - that makes it seem like magic, - oh, and there's a few updates to it via the help menu > check for updates too.

overclockedmind wrote: ↑Sat Aug 03, 2024 8:26 pm Sorry to interject, but I just wanted to let you guys know "where I am" and find out "where I might need to be."]

All help welcome. I think Paul sums it up on the first page of this topic. That's where we are with things currently.

OpenXTalkPaul wrote: ↑Thu Aug 01, 2024 1:53 pm In an effort to catch up any recent newcomers here is an attempt to summarize the history and current state of OpenXTalk IDE...
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First let me say, there is no team(s) here, there's only a small community of xTalk refugees.

This is helpful, thank you. However, I'm still struggling to figure out where I should start. Is there a roadmap, or some sort of volunteer task list?

foxtrot47 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 06, 2024 2:48 pm Is there a roadmap, or some sort of volunteer task list?

Hi there. Welcome back, there is... kind of.
If anyone can help address any of the more pressing issues here, that would be great.
If not - then if anyone can also fix any of these bugs too, that would also be highly appreciated.

Failing any of that, if anyone wants to get stuck into coding improvements and an Arm processor translation for the engine - a "you will need" list is here.

Alternatively, any sample stacks are always gratefully received too as they benefit everyone with alternative ideas of how to do things.

foxtrot47 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 06, 2024 2:48 pm

OpenXTalkPaul wrote: ↑Thu Aug 01, 2024 1:53 pm In an effort to catch up any recent newcomers here is an attempt to summarize the history and current state of OpenXTalk IDE...
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First let me say, there is no team(s) here, there's only a small community of xTalk refugees.

This is helpful, thank you. However, I'm still struggling to figure out where I should start. Is there a roadmap, or some sort of volunteer task list?

We've been mostly flying by the seat of our pants for three years and the forums are a bit of a mess as a result. There's not really any strict roadmap, but I think we all currently would love to have updated engine binaries for all the platforms. (im case you're a C++ software engineer).

Of course any bugs fixes and enhancements for the IDE are always welcome.

I think that's a great idea to have a list of tasks we need or want done. Particularly since we seem to be getting an influx of new users looking to help with these project(s).

I can only speak for myself as far as any list of tasks I'd like to see done in OXT DPE.

Here's a few things off the top of my head that I think would be great if contributors could help with:

1) Handler with a script that returns a fonts lists formatted for a menu/menu-button text where the fonts of the same family (like "Helvetica" for example) are grouped together in a sub-menu of the menu text list it returns. So the resulting menu text would have a sub-menu named "Helvetica" that has menu items "Helvetica Regular", "Helvetica Bold", "Helvetica Light", etc.

2) Handler for windows that uses shell / regedit to extract a list of fonts installed on the system.

3) A handler that works around the Font loading issue on Linux (I think that Tom might already has something for this)

4) Handler that can take a stack name or a list of controls / objects references, and then iterate through all the controls and the text of any controls that removes any color styling on any text fields and/or text chunks color settings, making the textColor, foreGroundColor, backGroundColor, etc. 'empty', but on 'button' controls it would set all to none except for the foreground to black. Such a handler would be very helpful for quickly making pre-existing stacks more macOS native-darkMode compatible.

5) I'd like to have something like a 'windows and screens' unified library. One of the goals of this library / abstraction layer would be having the capability to attach a custom 'window controller' to a stack (the stack would become 'frame-less' window and the stack's new 'window controller' bar would be able to emulate behaviors common with operating system's window controller bar (close, minimize, expand, etc.). This would be useful with the Emscripten engine where 'the platform' (web) doesn't actually have any OS Window manger. Could also be more generally useful in making some custom window behaviors or decorations. This library could include a Widget design for this particular use. Beyond custom widow controllers', sny WIndow management related handlers could be included this lib, like commands such as 'collectAllStackWindows' which could help people using multiple screens or Apple's 'sidecar'-iOS device-as-external monitor.

6) I'd like to have a full set of Widgets that would be a fully compatible with the same properties as 'classic control's. I already have close to a full set potential replacements. Some of these were already pre-existing in the LC CE Repo but not included in the IDE. Most of them are limited in some way, not fully complete replacements, some may just need more properties metadata added to them or need to have standard message handler (OnMouseUp add: post "mouseUp", OnMouseDown add: post mouseDown, etc.). The inspiration for this is that I'm getting sick and tired of trying to use 'Native' controls that always look different platforms, and that can only be modified/extended by recompiling the engine. With widgets the appearance should be very much the same style on every platform.

7) Create a mini IDE stack to help make building Widgets/Library Extensions easier. This would click-to-add certain common used Widget handlers and metadata for commonly used properties .

8) Combine various platform specific libraries or extension implementations of Text-To-Speech into an 'OXT Unified Speech Library'. There already exists the old revSpeak (Mac/Win only) external, my own Apple NSSpeech library (Mac only, can do a couple of extra tricks over revSpeak), community released projects for Apple 'AVSpeech' library (macOS/iOS mobile) and for Android TTS, I also made a extension library / wrapper for eSpeak (on Mac and Linux), and I have scripts to do speech in HTML5/web browser. I want them all to use able to be used from the same syntax ('Speak', not revSpeak) by creating a unifying library that abstracts away the underlying implementation and would use smart 'best available' to auto-choose the an underlying API.

9) This next thing has nothing to do with the LC CE based IDE/Engine, but I think it could be a great alternative xTalk engine...
Help me add to HyperCard Simulator, so that it becomes a more fully modern xTalk<->JS transpiling 'Engine' by adding newer xTalk syntax with JavaScript implementations to its HCSim's SimScript.
If you don't know what HyperCard Simulator is, briefly it emulates HyperCard v2.4 but uses web for UI.
HC Sim can import old HyperCard stacks pretty well, like this card animation my sister made decades ago:
http://www.openxtalk.org/WebStacks/SchrodingerCat.html
HC Sim even emulates some eXternal add-ons that came with HyperCard, such as AddColor.
Read the thread(s) on our forums like here https://openxtalk.org/forum/viewtopic.p ... 4&start=20 .
You can try the original plain-old-HyperCard 2.4 emulation here: https://HyperCardSimulator.com (zoom out stack to see the included IDE features)
and see the sort of modification/additions to it that I'm talking about here (see card 2 for SimScript additions): https://openxtalk.org/WebStacks/HC3PlusPlus.html

In general I would say we could always use more contributed demo stacks, games, lessons, documentation. etc.

Also help spread the word, not just to people from the old forum 'over there', but anywhere you see mention HyperCard, SuperCard, xTalk, Natural Language, English-like programming, etc. in articles on news sites or wherever. I search for stuff like that every few months and usually find a couple of new mentions where there is of course always people talking about how it would be great if there were a modern day version of HyperCard, not knowing anything about OXT (or LiveCode).

OpenXTalkPaul wrote: ↑Tue Aug 06, 2024 8:41 pm Here's a few things off the top of my head that I think would be great if contributors could help with:

1) Handler with a script that returns a fonts lists formatted for a menu/menu-button text where the fonts of the same family (like "Helvetica" for example) are grouped together in a sub-menu of the menu text list it returns. So the resulting menu text would have a sub-menu named "Helvetica" that has menu items "Helvetica Regular", "Helvetica Bold", "Helvetica Light", etc.

Exactly what I needed, thank you!

I'm assuming it makes sense to post solutions as separate topics in the workshop:
viewtopic.php?p=10183#p10183

tperry2x wrote: ↑Tue Aug 06, 2024 8:05 pm Hi there. Welcome back, there is... kind of.
If anyone can help address any of the more pressing issues here, that would be great.
If not - then if anyone can also fix any of these bugs too, that would also be highly appreciated.

Thank you, hopefully I can be of service. I'll have a look at those and see where I can pitch in.

With reference to

4) Handler that can take a stack name or a list of controls / objects references, and then iterate through all the controls and the text of any controls that removes any color styling on any text fields and/or text chunks color settings, making the textColor, foreGroundColor, backGroundColor, etc. 'empty', but on 'button' controls it would set all to none except for the foreground to black. Such a handler would be very helpful for quickly making pre-existing stacks more macOS native-darkMode compatible.

I have posted my first attempt here https://openxtalk.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1149

I have made this post as I fear that my post may have been missed.

S

CURRENT STATUS - November 2024.

In an effort to catch up any recent newcomers here is an attempt to summarize the history and current state of OpenXTalk IDE...
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Please read the first post in this topic, which summarises a lot, then there's these updates to bear in mind:
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Regarding recompiling the engines, we now have the 'Pre-Built' binaries that the build process was looking for.
I was able to get Linux Engine recompiled and removed the last piece of 'branding' which was a license checking stack that was embedded into the engines.
I've also done the same for Windows. Additionally, both the Windows and Linux version of OXT Lite is using 9.7.0-dp-1 of the engine.
The mac version is still on 9.6.3, due to the xCodeProject generated by the gyp build tool being full of serious errors. (Memory fragmentation and null pointers).

On the IDE side of things both myself and Paul continue work trying to make it better however we can.
Please remember we are doing this between other real life commitments, so progress may not always be as fast as you'd like.

Feel free to contribute any working stacks or script examples in the xTalk fun and games topic, as all suggestions are considered, mused through and possibly added to the IDE if applicable.